The thing I really love about Flickr is its groups – this is where the community of Flickr can be found, where I’ve made new friends and been inspired.

The problem is, one of the aspects of Flickr culture seems to be to join as many groups as possible. In order to get images the biggest audience, it’s common to see photos posted into multiple groups and it easily becomes the photographic equivalent of a hit and run.

I’m ashamed to say that my participation in most of the groups I belong to is simply to add a photo now and then. I don’t participate in any discussions. I rarely comment on other’s photos unless they’re on my contacts list. I’m not the only one, there are many many groups who have thousands of members, but their discussion boards are like ghost towns. The group becomes anonymous and loses its community.

So, I’ve had a prune. I’ve culled masses and masses of groups from my list and have got down to nine. Nine groups which have got a great community and I want to participate in. I’ve subscribed to their RSS feeds for both discussions and photo pools. I’m going to be an active member of just those nine groups.

I can do that.

So, it’ll probably be that most of my photos disappear into obscurity because they don’t fit neatly into any of my groups any more. It’ll also be interesting coping with a vastly extended RSS collection which was already fairly hefty. I’ve probably sabotaged any chance of my pictures being “interesting” enough to hit Explore ever again.

But at least I’ll feel part of a community again.